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WEBSTER'S 
WORK FOR THE UNION 



BERGEN 



WEBSTER'S 
WORK FOR THE UNION 



Neque enim iilla res est, in qua propius ad 

deorum numeu virtus aeeedat hnmaua, 

quam eivitates aut condere novas 

aut conservare jam conditas. 

Cicei'O, de Republiea. 




~^''^:s^f:_3?r^ 



z^.^.^:; 



WEBSTER'S 
WORK FOR THE UNION 

A PAPER 

READ BEFORE THE FORTNIGHTLY 
CLUB, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY 

BY FRANK BERGEN, LL.D. 



NEW HAVEN 

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR UNDER 
THE DIRECTION OF THE 

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
MDCCCCXVIII 



rs 



COPYRIGHT 

1918 

BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



This edition first puhlished, June, 191S 



OCT -3 1918 



^\'^ , I 



.K: 



NOTE 



THE following paper was prepared for the purpose of bring- 
ing out a little more distinctly than elsewhere (1) the 
plight from which Daniel Webster rescued the constitution; (2) 
^^ the fact that in March, 1850, he was not behind the spirit of the 
'^K times in dealing as a statesman with the menacing problem of 

slavery; and (3) that his personal opinions on the subject of 
slavery were quite in harmony with the sane sentiment of his 
countrymen in the decade before the civil war. 

For the use of the portrait of Webster I am indebted to 
Houghton, Mifflin Co., by whom it was published in Lodge's Life 
of Webster; and to J. B. Lippincott Co. for the facsimile of a 
letter by Lincoln to Chase, published by them in Lee's True 
History of the Civil War. 

F. B. 
Elizabeth, N. J., 
June, 1918. 



5 



WEBSTER'S WORK FOR 
THE UNION 



MR. GLADSTONE once said: "The American 
constitution is the most wonderful work ever 
struck off at a given time by the brain and 
purpose of man." Gladstone often failed in his efforts 
to tell the truth, and he seldom failed more completely 
than when he made that statement. If he had known as 
much about the American constitution as he may have 
known about Greek, and had ever learned to make a re- 
mark in English with less than two meanings, he might 
have said that the building of the republic of the United 
States under the supposed or alleged authority of the 
constitution is one of the most w^onderful works ever 
accomplished by the brain and purpose of man within a 
period of eighty years. 

I have never been able to find out definitely whether 
the draft of the constitution as it came from the conven- 
tion held at Philadelphia in 1787 expressed the agreement 
of the delegates or delegations from the states as clearly 
as they might have expressed it if thej^ had dared to be 
candid, or was an effort to do a good thing by stealth. 
There is evidence to support both views ; indeed, there is 
so much evidence to support either view as to make con- 
troversy interminable and the ascertainment of the truth 
impossible. Important provisions of the constitution 
which were rejected, when proposed in plain language in 
the convention, afterwards appeared in the final draft in 



8 WEBSTER'S WORK 

covert forms of expression. The important contract 
clause was rejected when offered by Rufus King, and 
afterwards inserted by the committee on style, and so 
approved with the rest by the final vote. Besides, after 
the constitution was adopted, other provisions tliat prob- 
ably would not have been admitted if expressed in lucid 
paragraphs, were discovered lurking among the loose 
joints of other powers, which, when examined separately, 
did not offend the delegates of a majority of the states. 
The most notable instance of this kind consisted of the 
proposals to confer on the federal government power to 
annul legislation or proceedings of the states inconsistent 
with the constitution. The first plan of a constitution 
submitted (Randolph's) contained a provision to author- 
ize congress to negative all acts contrary, in its opinion, 
to the constitution or to any treaty, and to use force to 
compel obedience by the states. The second (Charles 
Pinckney's) proposed to give congress power to revise 
state laws supposed to conflict with the constitution, and 
to negative and annul them if found inconsistent. The 
third (Paterson's) provided that if any state or body of 
men should oppose or prevent the enforcement of any 
act of congress or a treaty, the federal executive should 
have power to compel obedience by force. The next 
(Hamilton's) declared that all law^s of the states incon- 
sistent with the constitution and acts of congress should 
be null and void. This was followed by a motion of 
Charles Pinckney to vest in congress the power to nega- 
tive all laws passed by the several states interfering, in 
the opinion of congress, with the general interest and 
harmony of th(^ union. Not one of these proposals was 
adopted, although some of them were pressed vigorously; 
Init their object was substantially accomplished by other 



FOR THE UNION 9 

provisions found in the constitution, when construed 
together. 

The second section of the sixth article declares that 
the constitution and all laws and treaties made under the 
authority of the United States shall be the supreme law 
of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound 
thereby, notwithstanding anything in the constitution or 
laws of any state. And in the second section of the third 
article it is provided that the judicial power shall extend 
to all cases in law and equity arising under the constitu- 
tion, the laws of the United States, and treaties, and to 
some other matters. Consequently, when it was held that 
the courts had authority to declare acts of congress incon- 
sistent with the constitution to be void, and acts of the 
legislatures of the states inconsistent with the constitu- 
tion, or with acts of congress or treaties, also to be void, 
it was found that the stone which the builders at first 
rejected had become the head of the corner of the national 
government, and many good people marveled when they 
learned the fact. 

Moreover, the constitution contained three compro- 
mises relating to a dangerous matter, and as they were 
compromises with evil they were not likely to endure. 
In this way the constitution came to be charged with such 
stuff as storms are made of, — whether wittingly or not 
I cannot say. In considering this subject it should be 
remembered that many of the delegates who attended the 
convention were practical politicians — among the most 
useful members of the human family — equipped by long 
experience in the minor arts of statecraft, and who grew 
to the stature of statesmen after they died. One extrava- 
gant statement does not justify another, but in place of 
the remark of Gladstone it would be more accurate to 



10 WEBSTER'S WORK 

say that for three-fourths of a century the original con- 
stitution was the fruitful mother of discord, which could 
not be suppressed permanently by the compromises of 
Clay, the oratory of Webster, nor by the soothing syrup 
compounded by Everett and labeled AYashington. 

I do not think it is possible to obtain a correct view of 
Webster's work for the union without recalling the status 
of the constitution in the public mind prior to 1830 when 
the debate with Hayne occurred. Did the constitution 
create a national government, a federal government, or 
a more perfect union of the states than that which had 
been formed by the articles of confederation and per- 
petual union! Our present view of the constitution, as 
it towers over a large part of the world, makes it some- 
what hard to realize how it was regarded in 1789. It is 
now regarded as a constitution operating directly on in- 
dividuals, and also on states. The government created 
by it is national, and has the exclusive right to define the 
extent and limit of its powers. The constitution was not 
so understood when it was adopted, and for many years 
afterwards, although for a time Hamilton was permitted, 
if not invited, by Washington and the first and second 
congress, to construe it as he pleased, in the hope of 
getting the new^ government under way. 

If the original constitution is considered as a revision 
of the articles of confederation, as in large part it was, 
and is examined from the standpoint of the historian, 
abundant information may be found to sustain a cogent 
argument that it was a compact between sovereign states 
creating a federal government or continuing a con- 
federacy, from which any state might withdraw^ at will. 
Tlie constitution was framed by delegates sent to the con- 
vention by the states; they voted in the convention ))y 



FOR THE UNION 11 

states; their object, as declared in the constitution, was 
"to create a more perfect union," tliat is, a more perfect 
union of the states. The draft of the constitution was 
submitted to the states for adoption; it was adopted by 
conventions elected by the people of the several states — 
not by the people of the United States en masse; it bound 
no state that did not adopt it ; and it provided that when 
ratified by nine states it should be established as between 
them. The constitution also provided that the states 
should be represented in congress and equally in the 
senate; that they might appoint presidential electors in 
any way they pleased; that in case of a tie in the elec- 
toral college a president should be elected by the house of 
representatives voting by states, and that it might be 
amended by the states. The principal arguments pre- 
sented to the people in favor of the adoption of the con- 
stitution constitute the Federalist, not the Nationalist, 
and the party subsequently organized to sustain the ad- 
ministration of Washington and of the elder Adams was 
called the Federal party. 

Senator Lodge, in his life of Webster, forgetting for 
a moment the letter written by Madison to Hamilton 
Mobile the New York convention was debating the con- 
stitution, says: "When the constitution was adopted it 
is safe to say there was not a man in the country, from 
Washington and Hamilton, on the one side, to George 
Clinton and Mason, on the other, who regarded the new 
system as anything but an experiment by the states, from 
which any state had a right practically to withdraw, a 
right which was very likely to be exercised. ' ' That state- 
ment, like many others in histories of the United States 
and in biographies of Americans, is too broad and em- 
phatic. No doubt many of the people so understood the 



12 WEBSTER'S WORK 

constitution. Hamilton was dissatisfied with it, and 
probably believed that a government established under 
it could not endure; but as the constitution prepared by 
the convention offered the only chance to change the 
league of states into a nation, he rallied his friends 
around him and strove mightily to secure its adoption. 
His splendid intelligence may have discerned possibilities 
in the proposed constitution which others did not or could 
not see. 

Ten years after the constitution was adopted the 
Kentucky resolutions were written by Jefferson, and the 
Virginia resolutions by Madison, declaring in substance 
that the constitution was a compact, the government a 
confederacy, and that the states might judge of any 
alleged infraction of the compact, and prohibit the en- 
forcement of any act of congress within their borders 
which they had decided to be a palpable and dangerous 
violation of the compact. These resolutions were sent to 
the legislatures of all the states, and within two years 
thereafter Jefferson was elected to the presidency by the 
house of representatives voting by states, and was suc- 
ceeded by Madison eight years later. The doctrines of 
the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions sank so deeply 
into the public mind that they received a partial endorse- 
ment at the Hartford convention in 1814. 

The collapse of the Federal party, the election of 
Jefferson and Madison, and the apparent approval by 
the people of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions as 
a correct interpretation of the constitution, discredited 
the opinions of Hamilton and repudiated his somewhat 
artificial theory that the constitution had created a con- 
solidated national government, at least for some impor- 
tant purposes, and this was done so emphatically that it 



FOR THE UNION 13 

was said to be a brave act for Webster, as late as 1831, 
to pronounce his famous eulogy on Hamilton at a banquet 
in New York. 

The view of the relation of the states and of the people 
to the union expressed by Jefferson and Madison in 1798, 
and expounded by Hayne and Calhoun in the early 
thirties, was substantially this : The source of sovereignty 
is the people ; the people erected the governments of the 
several states and delegated part of their sovereignty to 
them ; the people of the several states, acting separately, 
also erected the federal government of the United States 
and delegated part of their sovereignty to that govern- 
ment ; all sovereignty not so delegated was retained by the 
people. The constitution conferred on the federal courts 
jurisdiction in all cases at law and in equity, that is, in all 
cases between suitors, and did not authorize the federal 
courts to decide questions that might arise between the 
states and the federal government. As no tribunal was 
created to decide such questions, it follows that each must 
decide for itself, just as independent governments may 
construe treaties which they have made. Jefferson and 
his disciples argued that if the federal government were 
permitted to determine for itself the extent of its powers, 
the result would be to appropriate gradually the reserved 
sovereignty of the people, and also that committed to the 
governments of the states, and so erect a despotism on 
the ruins of the confederacy. Webster argued, and suc- 
ceeded in convincing a majority of the people, that all 
questions as to the meaning of the constitution arising 
in suits at law or in equity must be decided by the courts ; 
that the supreme court of the United States is the final 
tribunal to determine such questions; that its decisions 
declare the supreme law of the land; and that all other 



14 WEBSTER'S WORK 

questions as to the meaning of the constitution may be 
decided by congress. It must be conceded that since 
Webster's view came to prevail the outlines of the states 
have been slowly fading from the map of the country, 
and the government at Washington is gradually fulfilling 
the prophecies of Jefferson and Calhoun. Whether the 
process of consolidation has proceeded or is likely to pro- 
ceed too far is a question not now to be considered. 

About a month before John Adams left the White 
House he appointed John Marshall chief justice, who held 
the office from 1801 until 1835, and during that period 
wrote forty-four opinions on constitutional questions. 
Marshall's views of the constitution concurred in the 
main with those that Hamilton had undertaken to ad- 
minister. Perhaps Marshall's most important opinions 
were rendered in Marhury v. Madison, holding that the 
supreme court, and of course any other court, has power 
to declare an act of congress to be invalid; Cohens v. 
Virginia, and the Dartmouth College Case, holding that 
statutes of a state were also subject to condemnation by 
the federal courts ; McCulloch v. Maryland, in which the 
implied powers of the constitution were developed at the 
expense of the states, and in Gibbons v. Ogden, asserting 
the omnipotent power of congress over interstate com- 
merce. Webster participated in the argument of these 
cases, except the first, and Marshall's opinions concur 
with the arguments that Webster presented. By the 
arguments and opinions in these and many other cases in 
which Webster appeared, the dormant or hidden things 
in the constitution were brought forth slowly and estab- 
lished as part of the constitutional jurisprudence of the 
country, much to the annoyance of Jefferson and the 
pupils of his school. The opinions of Marshall no doubt 



FOR THE UNION 15 

did something to create the sentiment which made Web- 
ster's reply to Hayne grateful to the public mind, al- 
though the masses of the people seldom take much inter- 
est in lawsuits. 

The controversy between Webster and Hayne in Janu- 
ary, 1830, arose nominally over a harmless resolution in- 
troduced by Senator Foote relating to the public lands. 
Hayne evidently was looking for an opportunity to assail 
New England, and Webster as its foremost statesman. 
He charged that New England had been unfriendly to 
the west in dealing with the public lands and entertained 
views of the constitution that were unsound, and pur- 
poses, indicated by the protective tariff law of 1828, that 
were hostile to the true interests of the rest of the 
country. His effort evidently was to persuade the west 
that the east was its enemy, and the south its friend. 
Both Webster and Hayne made two elaborate speeches, 
and a few minor remarks on Foote 's resolution, Hayne 's 
first speech was aggravating, but not personally offen- 
sive, and Webster made a dignified and convincing reply. 
Thereupon Hayne lost his temper. His second speech 
was elaborate, and in it he expounded, for the first time, 
Calhoun's curious doctrine of constitutional nullification, 
based on the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. Besides, 
his speech was highly exasperating, and contained many 
sharp and angry thrusts at Webster, who on the two fol- 
lowing days (January twenty-six and twenty-seven) de- 
livered his immortal reply. 

It is difficult to describe the reply of Webster in lan- 
guage that seems to be temperate and judicial. It made 
a profound impression on those who heard it, and con- 
vinced millions who read it in print. Its admirable 
rhetoric appealed alike to scholars who had spent their 
lives groping among the remains of dead languages ; to 



10 WEBSTER'S WORK 

people of limited education, and to school boys who had 
just learned to read; and it appealed so forcibly to a 
latent sentiment for nationality that it really established 
the constitution in the public mind, and placed the union 
for the first time on a permanent foundation. Its bene- 
ficial effects perhaps never were equaled by a single 
speecli, before or since. Parts that now seem to be 
defects had the effect of merits in 1830, and for many 
years after. Webster's pugnacious attitude towards 
Hayne charmed multitudes who were fond of a personal 
combat, and induced them to read the speech repeatedly 
from ])eginning to end, and as they read they learned to 
realize the value and grandeur of the union. It taught 
Americans ''to think continentally." The apostrophe to 
Massachusetts was a terrific effort to overcome Hayne 's 
biting, and not entirely unjust criticism, by the force of 
concussion alone. The extravagant peroration, which 
Webster himself in after years had the good sense to 
criticise, was declaimed in school houses all over the 
north, and planted national patriotism deep into the mind 
of the generation that was called on to preserve tlie union 
in the civil war. Governor Long of Massachusetts said 
in January, 1882 — a hundred years after Webster was 
l)orn: ''The great rebellion of 1861 went down hardly 
more before the cannon of Grant and Farragut than the 
thunder of Webster's reply to Hayne." And the late 
Senator Hoar said in a speech at Plymouth in August, 
1889: "Webster's great argument was behind every 
Ijayonet, and was carried home with every cannon-sliot in 
the war which saved the union." The perfect taste of 
Daniel Webster excluded from his speeches such clumsy 
efforts as these to generate poetry. I imagine the gov- 
ernor and the senator intended to say that the reply to 



FOR THE UNION 17 

Hayne created and sustained a sentiment for nationality 
in t]ie public mind that probably turned the tide of vic- 
tory from the south to the north in the war for the pres- 
ervation of the union. So interpreted I should say their 
remarks are true. 

In the autumn of 1832 Hayne was elected .e^overnor of 
South Carolina, and retired from the senate. Calhoun 
near the same time resigned the vice-presidency and was 
elected to the senate. On Noveml)er 24th Soutli Carolina 
adopted the memorable ordinance to nullify the tariff act 
of 1828. The ordinance denounced the act as a violation 
of the constitution highly injurious to the interests of 
South Carolina, and forbade every citizen of the state 
to obey or enforce it. Ironclad oaths to observe the ordi- 
nance were required of public officials, and severe penal- 
ties were prescribed for its violation. Thereupon Jack- 
son issued a proclamation (written, or at least revised, 
it is said, by Edward Livingston) in which he forcibly 
denied the right of a state to nullify or prohibit the en- 
forcement of an act of congress, or to secede from the 
union. The proclamation was based largely on the view 
of the constitution and the union that Webster had pre- 
sented in his reply to Hayne. 

In January, 1833, a bill was introduced in congress, 
commonly called the force bill, to enable the president 
to enforce more readily the tariff laws in South Carolina. 
The following day Calhoun introduced a series of resolu- 
tions in the senate, setting forth his views of the right of 
a state to nullify an act of congress which in its opinion 
was a palpable and dangerous violation of the constitu- 
tion, and also to withdraw from the union. Shortly after, 
Calhoun made a speech in the senate against the force 
bill, and in support of his resolutions; and on the six- 



18 WEBSTER'S WORK 

teentli of February, 1833, Webster replied in a speech en- 
titled, "The Union Not a Compact Between Sovereign 
States. " In that speech the fallacy of the theory of nulli- 
fication and secession was reviewed and controverted still 
more skilfully than in the reply to Hayne ; but the speech 
failed to attract the attention excited by the earlier effort, 
because it did not contain the elements that appealed so 
powerfully to the public mind three years before. 

Webster's argument based on the text of the constitu- 
tion was invincible. It was a wonderful display of his 
power to reason lucidly; but in so far as the discussion 
proceeded on historical grounds it must be said that Cal- 
houn had the better of the argument. His rejoinder to 
AYebster contained many sharp points, and in his dis- 
course on the constitution, written near the close of his 
life, Calhoun presented an amazing variety of arguments 
with consummate skill to show that the constitution was 
a compact between sovereign states; that every state 
might judge for itself of an infraction of the constitution, 
and withdraw from the union when it pleased, having of 
course what Jefferson called a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind. It is impossible to read it without 
admiration even now — half a century after the unholy 
cause for which Calhoun wrecked his life and nearly 
wrecked the country was lost forever. 

In estimating the value of Webster's work for the 
union in tli(» thirties it should be remembered that he 
not only expounded the constitution, but to some extent 
created a constitution for the country.* At the beginning 
of the century the Hamilton regime, as already observed, 

* In a de])ato witli Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, in 1858. Lincoln 
expressed one of the inaxiins of our politics as follows: "In this, 
and like comniunities, public sentiment is everything. With 



FOR THE UNION 19 

had been overthrown, indeed ahnost annihilated, and, 
especially during the war of 1812, the constitution had 
come to be regarded, in New England particularly, as 
little better than a rope of sand. The imbecility of the 
administration of Madison started a change of sentiment 
in the public mind, and a hope began to arise that the con- 
stitution might be found after all to contain some virtue 
or value, ^^^ebster, in his reply to Hayne, gave mag- 
nificent expression to that hope, and furnished convincing 
arg-uments for those who were beginning to perceive that 
a genuine government should be re-established at Wash- 
ington; and in his reply to Calhoun, Webster gave full 
expression to the technical meaning of the language of 
the constitution that he had revived and strengthened by 
his earlier efforts. 

Besides the famous speeches on the constitution and 
the union Webster delivered many others in the same 
strain, and also prepared and delivered occasional ad- 
dresses reviewing the most important incidents in the 
history of the country from the landing of the Pilgrims 
to the building of the Capitol. These speeches differ 
in quality and in stjde. Sometimes our Homer nodded 
and his ponderous intellect, like the intellect of Goethe, 
needed excitement. The conviction that the union was 
the shrine of liberty came to dominate Webster's large 
brain completely, and he lived in the profound belief that 

public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can suc- 
ceed. Consequently he Avho moulds public sentiment goes deeper 
than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes 
statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed." 
This observation might include constitutions quite as well. Web- 
ster made the constitution of the United States "possible to be 
executed. ' ' 



20 WEBSTER'S WORK 

''witlioiit its shelter no hnman worsliipper could detain 
the goddess from the skies. ' ' 

At Niblo's Garden, in March, 1837, speaking in a lofty 
strain he had learned from Milton, Webster expressed 
the awfnl fear and hope for the union in which he lived 
and died : 

''Under the present constitution, wisely and conscien- 
tiously administered, all are safe, happy, and renowned. 
The measure of our country's fame may fill all our 
breasts. It is fame enough for us to partake in her 
glory, if we will carry her character onward to its true 
destiny. But if the system be broken, its fragments must 
fall alike on all. Not only the cause of American liberty, 
])ut the grand cause of liberty throughout the whole earth, 
depends, in a great measure, on upholding the constitu- 
tion and union of these states. If shattered and de- 
stroyed, no matter by what cause, the peculiar and cher- 
ished idea of united American liberty will be no more for 
ever. There may be free states, it is possible, when there 
shall be separate states. There may be many loose, and 
feeble, and hostile confederacies, where there is now one 
great and united confederacy. But the noble idea of 
united American liberty, of our liberty, such as our 
fathers established it, will be extinguished for ever. 
Fragments and shattered columns of the edifice may be 
found remaining; and melancholy and mournful ruins 
will they be. The august temple itself will be prostrate 
in the dust. Gentlemen, the citizens of this republic 
cannot sever their fortunes. A common fate awaits us. 
In the honor of upholding, or in the disgrace of under- 
mining the constitution, we shall all necessarily partake. 
Let us then stand by the constitution as it is, and by our 
country as it is, one, united, and entire; let it be a truth 



FOR THE UNION 21 

engraven on our hearts, let it be borne on the flag under 
which we rally, in every exigency, that we have one 
country, one constitution, one destiny." 

Webster's profound sincerity was one of the secrets of 
his power and of his success in convincing millions of 
his countrymen that the union must be preserved at all 
hazards and at every cost. 

I must now pass on to a momentous incident in the life 
of Webster growing out of the war with Mexico. In 
order to be prepared to negotiate a treaty with Mexico, 
President Polk in 1846 asked congress for an appropria- 
tion of $2,030,000 to be used in part to pay the expenses 
of the negotiation, and the balance to ])e used in his 
discretion — perhaps for some ungodly purpose. A 
bill to appropriate the money was about to pass the 
house, when David Wilmot of Pennsylvania offered an 
amendment in the form of a proviso that no part of the 
money appropriated by the bill should be used to acquire 
territory, and no territory should be acquired from 
Mexico except on the fundamental condition that slavery 
should never exist therein. The proviso was adopted by 
the house. Webster voted for it in the senate, but the bill 
failed to pass. The following year a bill appropriating 
$3,000,000 for the same purpose was passed, without the 
proviso. The Wilmot proviso, although it failed of adop- 
tion, stirred again the controversy over slavery, until it 
raged with more violence than ever before. Webster 
dreaded the outlook, and in discussing the- proviso de- 
clared that he saw nothing in the future but contention 
and strife. The territory, however, that Polk desired, 
w^as obtained, but it was subject to the Mexican law pro- 
hibiting slavery. 

In the autumn of 1849 the people of California (part 



22 WEBSTER'S WORK 

of the territory taken from Mexico by the slave power) 
called a convention to frame a constitution. The conven- 
tion consisted of forty-eight members, fifteen of whom 
were from the slave states. The draft of the constitution 
prepared by the convention contained a provision pro- 
hibiting slavery. It was adopted unanimously by the 
convention, and promptly ratified by the people. The 
popular vote in its favor was about fifteen to one. Two 
senators were elected by the legislature to serve in con- 
gress, and application was made for admission to the 
union early in the following year. This proceeding in- 
furiated the statesmen and spokesmen of the slave states, 
and Clay devised the last of his compromises to still the 
tempest. 

Four years after the compromise of 1850 was effected 
Lincoln described it as follows: "The union now, as in 
1820, was thought to be in danger; and devotion to the 
union rightfully inclined men to yield somew^hat in points 
where nothing else could have so inclined them. A com- 
promise was finally effected. The south got their new 
fugitive slave law; and the north got California (by far 
the best part of our acquisition from Mexico) as a free 
state. The south got a provision that New Mexico and 
Utah, when admitted as states, may come in with or 
without slavery as they may then choose; and the north 
got the slave trade abolished in the District of Columbia. 
The north got the western boundary of Texas thrown 
farther back eastward than the south desired; but, in 
turn, they gave Texas ten millions of dollars, with which 
to pay her old debts. This is the compromise of 1850." 

In support of those measures Webster made his memo- 
rable speech on the seventh of March. New Mexico at 
that time was supposed to consist largelv of mountains 



FOR THE UNION 23 

and desert, in which slavery could not flourish, and if in- 
troduced there would die out, as it had died out in the 
northern states, and for the same reasons. Therefore 
Webster was not willing to apply the doctrine of tlie 
Wilmot proviso to that territory. To do so, he argued, 
w^ould irritate the south, and do nothing to aid the anti- 
slavery cause. "I look upon it," he said, "as a fixed 
fact, to use the current expression of the day, that both 
California and New Mexico are destined to be free. ' ' To 
put a provision in a bill to provide territorial govern- 
ment for New Mexico which should exclude slavery, he 
said, "would be idle as it respects any effect it would 
have upon the territory, and I would not take pains 
uselessly to re-afhrm an ordinance of nature, nor to re- 
enact the will of God. ' ' 

It has been said that Webster was in error when he de- 
clared that nature had barred slavery from New Mexico, 
because the territory contained minerals and slaves 
worked in mines in ancient times, and in modern times 
serfs and criminals worked in the mines of Siberia. This 
criticism overlooks important facts: — Slavery in Web- 
ster's time had died out in the northern states where 
minerals abounded. In 1850 there was a strong anti- 
slavery sentiment in all civilized countries, including the 
border states. California, as we have seen, had applied 
for admission to the union with an anti-slavery constitu- 
tion, and there was good reason to suppose that New 
Mexico would do the same.* But if Webster had not been 
confident ' ' that California and New Mexico were destined 

* In 1850, and after Webster's seventh of March speech, a con- 
vention met at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and drafted a state consti- 
tution prohibiting slavery. This constitution was ratified by the 



24 WEBSTER'S WORK 

to be free," it is clear that lie would not have favored the 
provision in the eoniproniise relating- to New Mexico and 
Utah. Of this, his consistent record of hostility to the 
extension of slavery is abundant proof; but there is still 
more. In June, 1850, in reply to a letter received from a 
number of citizens living along the Kennebec, Webster 
wrote : ' ' One of the exciting- questions of the present 
moment respects the necessity of excluding- slavery bj' 
law from the territories lately acquired from Mexico. 
If I believed in such a necessity, I should, of course, sup- 
port such a law. I could not do otherwise consistently 
with opinions very many times expressed, and which I 
have no inclination to change, and shall not change." 

It was the opinion of some of Webster's intimate 
friends, and millions of his countrymen, that his seventh 
of March speech was a dreadful mistake. Before con- 
curring in that opinion I should like to hear at least a 
plausible answer to the question: What other course 
should Webster have taken in dealing with Clay's com- 
promise measures in 1850! Webster's opposition might 
easily have defeated the compromise, but: What then? 
He had opposed Clay's compromise of 1833, and insisted 
that the strength and dignity of the government should 
be vindicated ; but Jackson, after blustering and threaten- 

people, and state officials were chosen. The military governor of 
the territory refused, however, to abdicate in favor of the state 
government without authority of congress. In December of that 
year congress passed an act creating a territorial form of govern- 
ment for New Mexico as part of the compromise measures, and 
after a struggle the embryo state government disappeared. The 
incident illustrates the correctness of Webster's judgment as to 
the course likely to be taken by the people of New ]\Iexico when 
the territory should be permitted to enter the union as a state. 



FOR THE UNION 25 

ing for three years, allowed Clay to surrender to Calhoun 
nearly all South Carolina demanded. In 1850 not South 
Carolina alone, but several other southern states, threat- 
ened to secede unless their wishes, or rights as defined by 
themselves, were respected and secured by law. The 
teachings of Calhoun had been as potent in the south as 
Webster's in the north, and Webster in those gloomy 
days no doubt foresaw the conflict impending which 
actually occurred ten years later.* To avert it if pos- 
sible, or, if inevitable, to postpone it as long as possible, 
he believed to be the supreme duty of the hour. Probably 
he knew that a generation was rising with a disposition to 
fight for the union,' but he could not have known that the 
young Americans of 1850 were more courageous than 
Jackson w^as in 1833. The latent sentiment in the north 
that Webster had created by his speeches in reply to 
Hayne and Calhoun perhaps was stronger than he knew 
or could have known, and much of the thoughtless rage 
that his seventh of March speech aroused came from the 
deep feeling among the people that their teacher, by 
whose arguments they had been convinced that a nation 
had been born, should have taken a defiant attitude in 
defence of the union instead of marking time. Webster, 
wiser than his critics, was not sure that the union could 
be saved by war. The south was united and exasperated 
by its failure to establish slavery in the territory wrested 
from Mexico, and a convention had been called to meet 
at Nashville in June to consider the suj^posed grievances 
of the slave-holding states. The north was not united. 
Intemperate abolitionists were denouncing the constitu- 

* I append, at page 51, an extract from Calhoun's speech on 
the compromise measures read in the senate on March 4, 1850. 
Calhoun was present, but too ill to deliver the speech himself. 



26 WEBSTER'S WORK 

tion as '*a compact with hell," and demanding a dissolu- 
tion of the union with slave-holders, and Clay was urging 
compromise. A wise statesman cannot disregard the 
sentiment of the hour in which he is called upon to act in 
an emergency, and his conduct often must be influenced 
by his responsibility. Indeed, during the winter of 
1860-1861, after the union had begun to dissolve, the Re- 
publican party raised the white flag at Washington re- 
peatedly, but did not succeed in surrendering to the slave 
power, and so averting or postponing war. 

It would require many portly volumes to hold all that 
has been said in condemnation and approval of Webster 's 
speech on the seventh of March, and of his subsequent 
support of the compromise measures. Those who con- 
sider the matter under the impression that Webster was 
arguing in favor of the institution of slavery find no diffi- 
culty in reaching the conclusion that Whittier hastily 
expressed in "Ichabod" and retracted in "The Lost 
Occasion." Book men generally have inclined to the 
opinion that Webster's course in 1850 was inconsistent 
with his previous record on slavery and a dark shadow 
on his fame. The late Professor Von Hoist is conspicu- 
ous among those who have judged Webster unjustly by 
letters and lamplight alone; but Carl Schurz, with a 
stronger congenital disposition to find fault, was saved 
from falling so deeply into the same error by the fact 
that before passing judgment on Webster, in his life of 
Clay, he had been a senator himself, and partly realized 
the truth of Burke's familiar observation that "all gov- 
ernment — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, 
every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on com- 
promise and barter." 

If official action, which necessarily recognized slavery, 



FOR THE UNION 27 

were convincing evidence of approval of slavery, even 
Washington was not faultless. The noble Virginian was 
the first to sign the constitution with its provision for 
return of fugitive slaves ; he also signed the fugitive slave 
law of 1793, and, besides, was a slave-holder himself. But 
Washington so disliked slavery that he set his slaves free 
by his will, and his fame has survived his connection with 
an institution that came to be regarded as "the sum of 
all villainies ' ' by the quickened conscience of a later day. 
The problem Webster had to deal with was not whether 
slavery was right or wrong. He never ceased to call it a 
moral and political wrong, that should not be extended 
beyond the states where it existed. A fair judgment of 
the compromise measures of 1850 can only be rendered 
after considering all of the elements of the transaction. 
Whoever, being opposed to slavery, looks at the California 
incident alone would no doubt regard it as a highly grat- 
ifying victory in the cause of freedom, because the best 
part of the territory taken from Mexico by the slave 
power for the purpose of sustaining and extending 
slavery was promptly organized as a free state, and for 
the first time gave to the free states a majority of the 
members of the senate ; but any one who should form an 
opinion of the compromise by studying the fugitive slave 
law alone might well borrow the language of the aboli- 
tionist to express his conclusion. The provisions of the 
compromise relating to New Mexico and Utah gave a 
chance for the extension of slavery, such as was afforded 
a few years later by the Kansas-Nebraska law; but the 
probability that slavery should ever be established in 
those territories was remote. The location of the Texas 
boundary line, another part of the compromise, was in 
favor of freedom, and, besides, the slave trade in the Dis- 



28 WEBSTER'S WORK 

trict of Columbia was abolished. The controlling con- 
sideration in the mind of AVebster was the preservation 
of the union, and the accomplishment of that object jus- 
tified all that he said. What he said was necessary to 
save the union, and it had that effect. Considering the 
transaction as a whole, after sixty years, it would be 
difficult for impartial history to find a reason to speak 
harshly of the statesmen who contrived and supported 
the compromise. The opinion that the compromise was 
a finality, if ever seriously entertained, turned out to be 
unfounded ; but it gave a chance for the milder influences 
of civilization to abolish slavery, if possible, and many 
hoped and some believed, and history encouraged the 
belief, that it was possible. The statesmen of the north- 
ern and the border states were justified in deciding in 
1850 that it was better to endure the ills of slavery for a 
season than to hazard the existence of the constitution 
and the union in the wild lottery of war. 

There is an impression — made by volleys of vitupera- 
tion more than sixty years ago and still lingering in the 
public mind — that Webster was an ardent advocate of 
the infamous fugitive slave law of 1850. The truth is 
that he was opposed to it from the first, and did not vote 
for it in the senate. He was in favor of a congressional 
fugitive slave law after the decision of the supreme court 
that congress had the exclusive power to legislate for the 
return of fugitive slaves, although his personal opinion 
was that the duty to return fugitive slaves had been im- 
posed by the constitution on the states and should be 
exercised by them.* An accurate statement of Webster's 
opinion and action relating to the fugitive slave law is 

* Works, vol. V, p. 354. 



FOR THE UNION 29 

sufficient to vindicate both, except in the jndi»-ment of 
those who think that the union with slavery was not 
worth savino-. Garrison, Phillips, and many other im- 
petuous abolitionists, held that opinion, but it was not 
the opinion of the judicious people in the free states who 
were opposed to slavery. 

Paragraph three of section two of article IV of the con- 
stitution states that — ''No person held to service or 
labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into 
another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but 
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." That provision is one of 
the compromises of the constitution, and without it the 
constitution could not have been adopted. 

It was held by the supreme court of the United States 
in the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, decided in 1842, that 
by virtue of that provision "the owner of a slave is 
clothed with entire authority, in every state of the union, 
to seize and recapture his slave, whenever he can do it 
without any breach of the peace, or without any illegal 
violence." It was also held in the same case that the 
clause conferred on congress exclusive power to legislate 
concerning the extradition of fugitive slaves; that the 
fugitive slave law of 1793 was constitutional; and that 
an act of the legislature of Pennsylvania passed in 1826, 
which forbade the forcible removal of any negro or 
mulatto from that state with a design of selling or detain- 
ing him as a slave, was in conflict with the constitution of 
the United States. The object of the Pennsylvania stat- 
ute was to require judicial proceedings before removal, 
if a fugitive resisted. 

In our humane age it is impossible to justify the fugi- 



30 WEBSTER'S WORK 

live slave laws except, possibly, as a dire necessity. The 
first fugitive slave law was passed in 1793; the second 
and last was passed in 1850. The earlier act related both 
to fugitives from justice and fugitives from labor. For 
a generation prior to 1850 not more than three or four 
fugitive slaves were returned to the south from New 
England, and many slaves in various parts of the country 
were aided in their efforts to escape to Canada by people 
opposed to slavery. In many northern states personal 
liberty laws were passed for the purpose of making it 
difficult or impossible to recover fugitive slaves. The act 
of 1850 grew out of a demand by the slave states for a 
more effective law. It contained two damnable provi- 
sions not expressed in the former act — one prohibiting 
an alleged slave from testifying in a proceeding to extra- 
dite him, and another giving to the commissioner who 
heard a fugitive slave case ten dollars if he decided in 
favor of the claimant, and five dollars if he decided 
in favor of the fugitive. It also made ex parte affidavits 
plenary evidence for the claimant. Such affidavits, how- 
ever, were used, and fugitives were not allowed to testify, 
in proceedings under the act of 1793.* 

* The earliest fugitive slave law enacted in this country Avas 
inserted in the articles of confederation of the united colonies of 
New England in 1643. It provided for the return of fugitive 
slaves upon the certificate of a magistrate in the jurisdiction from 
which the slave had fled, and no trial by jury was permitted. 
There was also a provision relating to fugitive slaves in the 
ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwest territory, 
stating that any person escaping into that territory from whom 
labor or service was lawfully claimed in any one of the original 
states might be "lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person 
claiming his or her labor or service." 



FOR THE UNION 31 

In February, 1850, Webster prepared an amendment to 
the fugitive slave law of 1793, or, rather, a revision of 
that act so far as it related to fugitive slaves, and pro- 
vided in his bill that every judge of the federal courts 
and every commissioner appointed by those courts 
should, on complaint, issue a warrant for the arrest of 
an alleged fugitive slave, and cause him to be taken before 
any federal judge or commissioner within the state or 
territory where found '^that the right of the person claim- 
ing the service of such fugitive may be examined" on 
' ' depositions duly authenticated and parol proof. ' ' Web- 
ster 's bill also contained a provision that if the fugitive 
should deny that he owed service to the claimant the judge 
or commissioner must fortlnvith summon a jury to try 
the issue so raised and preside at the trial and determine 
the competency of the proof. There could be no sound 
objection to such a law, if any fugitive slave law was 
required by the constitution. In June, 1850, Webster 
introduced his bill in the senate, but it received no sup- 
port. He also prepared an amendment to the bill intro- 
duced by Senator Mason (and which finally became a 
law), providing for a trial by jury chosen from the neigh- 
borhood where the fugitive was arrested. Dayton offered 
the amendment after Webster had resigned from the 
senate. Clay offered a substitute, providing for a trial 
by a jury of the vicinity from which the fugitive had 
escaped. Both amendments failed. Although Webster 
did not vote for the fugitive slave law of 1850, he said in 
his seventh of March speech that he intended to vote for 
Senator Mason's bill with some amendments. He retired 
from the senate in July of that year, and accepted the 
office of secretary of state. The fugitive slave law was 
enacted in September following. It is true, however, 



32 WEBSTER'S WORK 

that Webster supported the compromise measures after 
they became laws ; but if he defended the fugitive slave 
law because he liked it, or if he did not believe that its 
support was necessary to save the union, he deserved all 
that was ever said against him. The situation presented 
to Webster the single question whether the preservation 
of the union was important enough to justify the support 
of measures which it was supposed at the time would 
strengthen the position of slavery. He decided the fate- 
ful question in favor of the union, and precisely as 
Lincoln would have decided it. In a speech at Peoria, 
Illinois, in October, 1854, Lincoln said: "Much as I hate 
slavery, I would consent to the extension of it rather than 
see the union dissolved, just as I would consent to any 
great evil to avoid a greater one." 

Two or three weeks after Webster delivered his seventh 
of March speech, Theodore Parker at a meeting in 
Faneuil Hall, intimated broadly, although he did not 
charge directly, that Webster's speech was a bid for the 
presidency, to which it was known he had long aspired, 
and certainly had a clear right to aspire. In the following 
month Horace Mann made the same unjust accusation. 
Defamation loves a shining mark, and so the accusation 
ran over the country with all the fleetness of falsehood, 
and there are many good people who believe even now 
that Webster crooked the hinges of his knee to the slave 
power that political thrift might follow fawning. It is 
only necessary to credit Webster with ordinary intelli- 
gence to realize that he must have known that his speech 
could not aid his political fortunes either in the north or 
south, and in fact it did not. 

It may be that Webster underestimated the streng-th of 
the anti-slavery sentiment in the north in 1850. For 



FOR THE UNION 33 

twenty years there had been much fierce denunciation of 
slavery, and increasing hostility to the enforcement of 
the fugitive slave law, especially in New England. This 
feeling- had been much aggravated by the Wilmot proviso 
and the purpose and outcome of the war Avith Mexico; 
and although Webster was in favor of respecting the pro- 
vision in the constitution relating to persons held to ser- 
vice and of obejdng the fugitive slave law, it required 
courage for him to say so in the senate as the most con- 
spicuous representative of Massachusetts. Such a dec- 
laration seemed to an excited or excitable mind to be 
inconsistent with his lifelong dislike of slavery and hos- 
tility to its extension into territory w^here it did not law- 
fully exist. The rebuke which Webster administered to 
the north for refusing to obey the fugitive slave law, and 
the declaration of his purpose to vote after some amend- 
ments for a more effective statute for the rendition of 
slaves, then pending in the senate, coupled with a candid 
admission that he had no plan to propose for the aboli- 
tion of slavery, all in the same speech, certainly could not 
increase his strength in the north as a candidate for the 
presidency. On the contrary, it promptly caused a wide- 
spread storm of fierce denunciation that tarnished his 
fame for half a century and has not yet ceased entirely 
to beat upon his tomb. 

It is commonly supposed that Seward in his speech on 
the compromise measures announced the '* higher law" 
as a new discovery, but thirteen years earlier almost to 
a day, Webster in a speech at New York declared im- 
pressively that the conscience of the community was 
marshaling its forces to go to the rescue of the slave. 
He said : ' ' On the general question of slavery, a great 
portion of the community is already strongly excited. 



34 WEBSTER'S WORK 

The subject has not only attracted attention as a ques- 
tion of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. 
It has arrested the religious feeling of the country; it 
has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a 
rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human 
nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate 
of the character of the people of this country, who sup- 
poses that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or 
despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. 
It may be reasoned with, it may be made willing, I believe 
it is entirely willing, to fulfil all existing engagements and 
all existing duties, to uphold and defend the constitution 
as it is established, with whatever regrets about some 
provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce 
it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, 
to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and 
more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render 
it,— should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the 
constitution or in the union itself, which would not be 
endangered by the explosion which might follow." 

This was an extremely dangerous feeling for Webster 
to reason with or oppose, — even to confine it within the 
compass of the constitution and the law. After much 
reflection and consultation ^vith friends, in which he 
learned that he could count on no support by his col- 
leagues from Massachusetts and but little by the members 
of congress from the New England states, Webster 
bravely made his final effort to save the union, saying: 
''I have made up my mind to embark alone on what I 
am aware will prove a stormy sea, because, in that case, 
if final disaster shall ensue, there will be but one life 
lost." He believed, however, that his judgment would 
lic vindicated in the course of time. In his speech he 



FOR THE UNION 35 

denounced the anti-slavery societies, because he believed 
them to be enemies of the union, as many abolitionists 
openly professed to be, and he scolded the people who 
were opposed to the enforcement of the fugitive slave 
law, because he believed that its enforcement was indis- 
pensable to the preservation of the union. It may be 
observed in passing that in the last century, as in our day, 
much was said in politics that was not felt by the 
speakers. Many no doubt advocated the enforcement of 
the fugitive slave law who could never have been per- 
suaded or forced to join in a hue and cry to apprehend a 
slave running toward the north star, and it was not the 
least of the curses of slavery that it often compelled the 
pure in heart to speak falsely. 

Nor is there anything in the speech that could be con- 
strued as a bid for the southern vote for the presidency. 
It needs but a slight acquaintance with the dominant 
sentiment in the slave states in 1850 to realize that fact. 
Speaking on the seventh of March Webster read extracts 
from a speech he had made at Niblo's Garden in 1837, 
in which he said: "When I say that I regard slavery in 
itself as a great moral, social and political evil, I only 
use language which has been adopted by distinguished 
men, themselves citizens of slave-holding states. I shall 
do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further 
extension. We have slavery already among us. The con- 
stitution found it in the union ; it recognized it, and gave 
it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of these guaran- 
ties we are all bound, in honor, in justice, and by the 
constitution." After reciting this remark, Webster con- 
tinued: "I have nothing to add to, or to take from, those 
sentiments." 

Ten years later, speaking at a convention in Spring- 



36 WEBSTER'S WORK 

field, Massaclmsotts, Webster declared: "We are to use 
the first and the last and every occasion which oiTers to 
oppose the extension of slave power," He also quoted 
that expression on the seventh of March, and added: "I 
know no change in my sentiments, or my purposes, in 
that respect." And again, after insisting that slavery 
could not thrive in New Mexico, he said: '* Wherever 
tliere is a sul)stantive good to be done, wherever there is 
a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave terri- 
tory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion 
of slavery. I am pledged to it from the year 1837 ; I have 
been pledged to it again and again; and I will perform 
those pledges ; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that 
Avounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to 
my own understanding." Those remarks constitute a 
fair statement of the position taken by the Republican 
party on the subject of slavery in its platform adopted at 
Chicago in 1860. 

I cannot see how it is possible to condemn Webster for 
his seventh of March speech without passing a similar 
judgment on Lincoln. In 1858 Lincoln said in a speech 
at Springfield, Illinois: " 'A house divided against itself 
cannot stand.' I do not believe this government can 
endure, pennanently, half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house 
to fall; but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. 
It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of 
it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its 
advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike 
lawful in all the states, old as well as new, north as well 
as south." Two vears later he was elected to the presi- 



FOR THE UNION 37 

dency, and one of the most frightful wars in history en- 
sued. In August, 1862, Lincohi in a letter to Greeley, 
replying to a querulous editorial in the Tribune, was con- 
strained to take the position that Webster had occupied 
in 1850: ''My paramount object in this struggle," said 
Lincoln, "is to save the union, and it is not either to save 
or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without 
freeing any slave I would do it ; and if I could save it by 
freeing all the slaves I would do it ; and if I could save it 
by freeing some and leaving others alone I would do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do be- 
cause I believe it helps to save the union; and what I 
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help 
to save the union." 

That passage states perfectly the attitude of Webster 
in 1850, and explains the purpose of his speech on the 
seventh of March, — to save the union regardless of 
slavery. At the end of the letter to Greeley, Lincoln said : 
"I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal 
wish that all men everywhere could be free." Webster 
repeatedly expressed the same good wish. Rhodes in his 
historj^ says of Webster: ''His dislike of slavery was 
strong, but his love for the union was stronger;" and 
Lincoln, defining his purpose and opinion in his letter to 
G-reeley, said the same thing. If Webster in 1850 had 
talked in the senate as Lincoln talked eight years later on 
the stump it is quite likely — indeed I believe it is certain — 
that the civil war would have occurred with some one like 
Fillmore, Pierce or Buchanan in the White House. 

The speeches and letters of Webster and Lincoln relat- 
ing to slavery and the union indicate that neither states- 
man believed that the inhabitants of the free states had 
a right to interfere with slavery in the states wliere it 



38 WEBSTER'S WORK 

existed, and therefore should not attempt to do so.* Both 
were opposed to the acqnisition of additional territory 
where slavery existed or might flourish; both were op- 
posed to the extension of slavery into the territories 
belonging to the United States ; both were in favor of an 
effective fugitive slave law; both were dissatisfied with 
the fugitive slave law of 1850, but after its passage they 
were willing it should be enforced; both believed, after 
the compromise of 1850, that slavery was "in the course 
of ulthnate extinction;" and both preferred to save the 
union wdth slavery (and Lincoln was willing to extend 
slavery) rather than see the union dissolved in the hope 
thereby of aiding in the abolition of slavery. The dif- 
ference in their feeling in respect of slavery and the 
union seems to be this: — Webster disliked slavery; 
Lincoln hated slavery. Webster probably set a higher 
value on the union than Lincoln did. The establishment 
and preservation of the union was the work to which 
Webster devoted his life. For the abolition of slavery 
Lincoln suffered death. 

The outcome of the struggle between freedom and 
slavery justified the judgment of Webster in 1850 — the 
union was saved, and slavery was abolished. If the com- 
promise measures had failed, the civil war would have 
occurred ten years earlier and resulted prol)al)ly in the 
establishment of a southern confederacy, with slavery as 
its corner-stone, and a dead line between freedom and 
slavery extending from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. 

As Webster's life was drawing to its close a curious 
exercise of New England emotion was exhibited. In 
April, 1851, a large number of the solid men of Boston 

* Several extracts from tlicir letters and speeches are appended. 



FOR THE UNION 39 

desired to offer him a public reception in Faneuil Hall. 
Webster was willing to accept the invitation, and Choate 
agreed to welcome him with charming speech and tangled 
rhetoric, but the board of aldermen refused permission 
to use the hall. Thereupon the people murmured; the 
aldermen attempted to excuse themselves, and the 
common council unanimously invited Webster to meet 
them in the hall, but he declined in a dignified letter, 
saying that he would "defer his visit to Faneuil Hall 
until its doors should open on golden hinges to let in all 
men who were true to the union as well as to liberty." 
A little more than a year later he suffered a painful 
injury by a fall from his carriage, and the people de- 
manded a sight of their idol. The doors of the hall were 
opened on golden hinges by unanimous consent, and Web- 
ster for the last time in the cradle of liberty declaimed 
the platitudes of patriotism before a delighted audience. 
As he looked around on the portraits of the patriots at 
whose feet he had learned to prize the union above all 
things, he exclaimed, ''This is Faneuil Hall, open!" Six 
weeks later, and after the whig convention at Baltimore 
had nominated Scott for the presidency, Webster on his 
way from Washington to Marshfield w^as "arrested" as 
he said at Boston, and a reception given to him, which 
according to the elderly people surpassed any ovation 
that had ever been tendered in Massachusetts to a famous 
man, even to Lafayette. At sunset Webster addressed a 
vast multitude from a platform on the Common, and 
when the rejoicings of the day were ended, perhaps some 
of the descendants of the Pilgrims as they wended their 
way homeward in the twilight may have recalled the story 
of Paul's shipwreck and subsequent entertainment by the 



40 WEBSTER'S WORK 

natives of Melita, and compared tlie narrative with Web- 
ster's experience among- the versatile citizens of Boston. 

When the storm broke over Webster in March, 1850, 
he was unfortunate in his enemies and in his friends. 
Among his enemies were Garrison, Phillips and Parker, 
men of copious vocabulary, pungent vituperation, and 
reckless of speech. Emerson, too, joined, although 
mildly, in their outcry, and Whittier wrote some bitter 
verses about Ichabod, as his contribution to the frantic 
effort of the fanatics to defame the grandest man, meas- 
ured by intellect and achievement, who was ever born in 
the New World. Webster's most prominent friends, such 
as Everett, Curtis, Winthrop and Choate, — their minds 
overloaded with polite learning, — had not l)een blessed 
with the gift of courage, and he also had some foolish 
friends like Peter Harvey. Besides, Webster had faults 
which scandal-mongers loved to mention and exaggerate, 
and which perhaps gave pause to his timid followers ; but 
there was no fault in the rock of his patriotism. He stood 
for more than thirty years foremost among the orators 
of whom we have reliable knowledge, expending the 
rarest of gifts to strengthen and preserve the union of 
the states, and earned the right to be remembered by that 
work alone. 

When men of ordinary or ill-balanced capacity and 
meagre imagination assume to sit in judginent on one 
of the princes of the earth, their verdict is likely to be 
based on a few morsels or facets of truth or error. No 
man can be judged justly except by his peers. If anyone 
with a knack of writing verses and instructed in the laws 
of dramatic composition, but not otherwise qualified, 
should attempt to write an appreciation of Shakespeare, 
he migiit easily place the bard of Avon lielow Tennyson. 



FOR THE UNION 41 

In the time of Webster men with narrow and intense 
minds, struggling recklessly to attain a single object, and 
convinced that righteousness could be obtained per 
saltum, were not competent to sit in judgment on a far- 
seeing patriot whose walk was on the mountain ranges of 
statesmanship; and in later years the views of kindred 
critics who have undertaken to pronounce judgment on 
the career of Webster are subject to the same limitations. 
An agitator may well demand what is possible at some 
time; but a statesman, in order to accomplish anything, 
must consent to what is presently possible. 

In our day the wisdom of Webster's course in 1850 is 
more clearly perceived, and history is beginning to make 
amends to his memory for the injustice that cast a shadow 
over his declining years. There are some who still think 
it wise to dilute their admiration for the expounder of the 
constitution with the preserved bitterness of his enemies ; 
but those who have learned "to think continentally" and 
to appreciate the incidents and comprehend the course 
of our political career for a century, realize that the four 
human pillars on which the constitution and the union 
rest, are : Washington, Hamilton, Marshall and Web- 
STEE ; that without Webster the fallen fabric that Hamil- 
ton had erected under the shelter of Washington's char- 
acter could not have been restored, and that the efforts of 
Lincoln to save the union and abolish slavery must have 
failed. Webster's glowing speeches enlightened a gen- 
eration, and won the verdict of the people for the per- 
petual union of the states. He was born for the uni- 
verse, and the grandeur of his patriotism made him 
unwilling to give up to party or to race what was intended 
for his country and for mankind. 



APPENDIX 



EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES AND LETTERS OF 
LINCOLN AND WEBSTER 

THE most rational public opinion between 1850 and 
1865 on the subject of slavery, and the soundest 
advice for practical statesmen in dealing with that grave 
issue, were no doubt expressed in the words of Lincoln. 
It is interesting to compare the following statements of 
his views during that period with the earlier opinions of 
Webster on the same subject, quoted in the foregoing- 
pages, and with letters written by him in 1850 to Colby 
and Furness, printed near the end of this appendix. 
Lincoln adopted the anti-slavery opinions of Webster, 
and in expressing them mth more feeling had the ad- 
vantage of a more agreeable public sentiment. 

In a speech at Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, 
Lincoln said: ''When they [the people of the south] 
remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge 
them — not grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and I would 
give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their 
fugitives, which should not in its stringency be more 
likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary 
criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. * * * 

"Some men, mostly whigs, who condemn the repeal of 
the Missouri compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go 
for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company with 
the abolitionist. Will they allow me, as an old whig, to 
tell them, good-humoredly, that I think this is very silly! 
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him 



44 WEBSTER'S WORK 

while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. 
Stand with the abolitionist in restoring the Missouri com- 
promise, and stand against Mm when he attempts to re- 
peal the fugitive slave law. In the latter case you stand 
with the southern disunionist [who believed that the re- 
peal of the fugitive slave law would precipitate seces- 
sion]. What of that? You are still right. In both cases 
you are right. In both cases you oppose the dangerous 
extremes. In both you stand on middle ground, and hold 
the ship level and steady. In both you are national, and 
nothing less than national. This is the good old whig 
ground. To desert such ground because of any company 
is to be less than a whig — less than a man — less than an 
American. ' ' 

In the same speech, referring to an effort of Douglas 
to show that Lincoln's views were inconsistent with those 
of Clay and Webster, he said : ' ' Finally the Judge invokes 
against me the memory of Clay and of Webster. They 
were great men, and men of great deeds. But where 
have I assailed them? For what is it that their life-long 
enemy shall now make profit by assuming to defend them 
against me, their life-long friend? I go against the re- 
peal of the Missouri compromise; did they ever go for 
it ? They went for the compromise of 1850 ; did I ever go 
against them ? They were greatly devoted to the union ; 
to the small measure of my ability was I ever less so ? " 

And again in that speech, replying to a question why 
the whigs in 1852 endorsed the compromise of 1850 if they 
did not intend to apply the Utah and New Mexico provi- 
sion to all future territories, Lincoln said: ''For myself, 
I can answer this question most easily. I meant not to 
ask a repeal or modification of the fugitive slave law. I 
meant not to ask for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 



FOR THE UNION 45 

trict of Columbia. I meant not to resist the admission of 
Utah and New Mexico, even should they ask to come in 
as slave states. I meant nothing- about additional terri- 
tories, because, as I understood, we then had no territory 
whose character as to slavery was not already settled. ' ' 

On July 10, 1858, in a speech at Chicago, Lincoln said : 
*'I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any 
abolitionist,— I have been an old line whig,— I have 
always hated it; but I have always been quiet about it 
until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska bill 
began. I always believed that everybody was against it, 
and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. * * * 
The great mass of the nation have rested in the lielief 
that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. They 
had reason so to believe. * * * I have said a hundred 
times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that 
I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclina- 
tion, in the people of the free states to enter into the slave 
states, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. 
I have said that always; Judge Douglas has heard me 
say it, if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a 
hundred times ; and when it is said that I am in favor of 
interfering with slavery where it exists, I know it is 
unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, and, as I 
believe, by anything I have ever said. If, by any means, 
I have ever used language which could fairly be so con- 
strued (as, however, I believe I never have), I now 
correct it. ' ' 

In a speech at Freeport, Illinois, August 27, 1858, 
during the debate with Douglas, Lincoln said: ''I have 
never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, 
that I think, under the constitution of the United States, 
the people of the southern states are entitled to a con- 



46 WEBSTER'S WORK 

gressional fugitive slave law. Having said that, I have 
had nothing to say in regard to the existing fugitive slave 
law, further than that I think it should have been framed 
so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain 
to it, without lessening its efficiency. ' ' 

On October 15, 1858, at Alton, Illinois, Lincoln said, in 
reply to Douglas: "I suppose most of us (I know it of 
myself) believe that the people of the southern states are 
entitled to a congressional fugitive slave law, — that is a 
right fixed in the constitution. But it cannot be made 
available to them without congressional legislation. In 
the Judge's langiiage it is a 'barren right,' which needs 
legislation before it can become efficient and valuable to 
the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right 
is constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be 
granted to it, — and that, not that we like the institution 
of slavery. We profess to have no taste for running and 
catching niggers, — at least, I profess no taste for that 
job at all. Why then do I jdeld support to a fugitive slave 
law? Because I do not understand that the constitution, 
which guarantees that right, can be supported without 
it." 

The following letter written by Lincoln to Chase in 
1859 illustrates the state of opinion then prevailing in the 
north in respect of slavery in the states where it existed. 
It also expresses the opinion of the fugitive slave law of 
1850 entertained by many people in the northern states 
who were opposed to slavery : — 



j5~*-^-» >»^ ^^ 'P^'*^^ <3^*— i-^CZZZ«iw ^.-f^Jh-^A.^,^^ ,j,-j,_^<,^v*,.»«»j 

LETTER FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO SALMON P. CHASE 



^2„^,c^;><^-*.-C^' 4i-v_^^ ^<^!^^J^ a<Z^^-^ ^^^^-'a-cr /i-^Sx7 
/ «uL-«~</ a/ t^i<^^a^ /0-N<rC/ t-^y^^Zo pt^rvv' ,c?w /^^^^ /•3-*-^ 



• FOR THE UNION 47 

Finally, in his first inaugural, Lincoln said : "I do but 
quote from one of those speeches [referring to his public 
speeches], when I declare that 'I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no 
lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so.' 
Those who nominated and elected me did so with the full 
knowledge that I had made this and many similar 
declarations, and had never recanted them. And more 
than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, 
and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and em- 
phatic resolution which I now read : — 

^' 'Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the 
rights of the states, and especialh^ the right of each state 
to order and control its own domestic institutions accord- 
ing to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that 
balance of power on which the perfection and endurance 
of our political faln-ic depend ; and we denounce the law- 
less invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or 
territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the 
gravest of crimes. ' 

''I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the prop- 
erty, peace, and security of no section are to be in any- 
wise endangered by the now incoming administration. 

"I add, too, that all the protection, which, consistently 
with the constitution and the laws, can be given, will be 
cheerfully given to all the states when lawfully demanded, 
for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to 
another. 

"There is much controversy about the delivering up of 
fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read 



48 WEBSTER'S WORK 

is as plainly written in the constitution as any otlier of 
its provisions : — 

' ' * No person held to sei'viee or labor in one state under 
the laws thereof, eseapins: into another, shall, in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on 
claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be 
due. ' 

"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the lawgiver 
is the law. 

"All members of congress swear their sup])ort to the 
whole constitution — to this provision as well as any 
other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases 
come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered 
u]),' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make 
the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly 
equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of 
which to keep good that unanimous oath? 

"There is some diiference of opinion whether this 
clause should be enforced by national or by state author- 
ity ; but surely that difference is not a very material one. 
If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little 
consequence to him or to others, by which authority it is 
done; and should anyone, in any case, l)e content that 
his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial contro- 
versy as to how it shall be kept? 

"Again, in any law on this subject, ought not all the 
safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane 
jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be 
not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it 
not be well at the same time to provide by law for the 



FOR THE UNION 49 

enforcement of that clause in the constitution which 
guarantees that 'the citizens of each state shall be entitled 
to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the 
several states'? 

''I take the official oath today with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the constitution or 
laws b}^ any hypercritical rules ; and while I do not choose 
now to specify particular acts of congress as proper to be 
enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, 
both in official and private stations, to conform to and 
abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to 
violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having 
them held to be unconstitutional." 

After the inauguration of Lincoln, and with both houses 
of congress controlled by the Repul)lican party, repeated 
efforts were made to repeal the fugitive slave law of 
1850, but without success until June, 1864. 

In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Furness of Philadelphia, 
February 15, 1850, Webster said: "From my earliest 
youth, I liave regarded slavery as a great moral and 
political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural 
equality of mankind, founded only in superior power; a 
standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over 
the weaker. * * * I do what I can to restrain it; to pre- 
vent its spread and diffusion ; but I cannot disregard the 
oracles which instruct me not to do evil that good may 
come. I cannot co-operate in breaking up social and 
political systems, on the warmth, rather than the 
strength, of a hope that, in such convulsions, the cause of 
emancipation may be promoted. And, even if the end 
would justify the means, I confess I do not see the rele- 
vancy of such a means to such an end. I confess, my dear 
sir, that, in my judgment, confusion, conflict, embittered 



50 WEBSTER'S WORK 

controversy, violence, bloodshed, and civil war, would 
only rivet the chains of slavery the more strongly. 

"In my opinion, it is the mild influence of Christianity, 
the softening and melting- power of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, and not the storms and tempests of heated contro- 
versy, that are, in the course of those events winch an all- 
wise Providence overrules, to dissolve the iron fetters 
by which man is made the slave of man." 

In a letter to Mr. Colby, November 11, 1850, Webster 
said: "Experience has taught me how useless it is to 
attempt to stop the allegations of political adversaries 
by denials of their statements. For your sake, however, 
I will say, that my public speeches show my opinion to 
have been decidedly in favor of a proper, efficient, and 
well-guarded law, for the recovery of fugitive slaves ; that 
while I was in the senate, I proposed a bill, as is well 
known, with provisions different from those contained in 
the present law; that I was not a member of that body, 
when the present law passed ; and that, if I had been, I 
should have moved, as a substitute for it, tlie bill pro- 
posed by myself. I feel bound to add that, in my judg- 
ment, the present law is constitutional ; and that all good 
citizens are bound to respect and obey it, just as freely 
and readily as if they had voted for it themselves. If 
experience sliall show that, in its operation, the law 
inflicts wrong, or endangers the liberty of any whose 
liberty is secured by the constitution, then congress ought 
to be called on to amend or modify it. But, as I think, 
agitation on the subject ought to cease. We have had 
enough of strife on a single question, and that, in a great 
measure, merely theoretical. It is our duty, in my 
opinion, to attend to other great and practical questions, 
in which all parts of the country have an interest." 



FOR THE UNION 51 

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH OF CALHOUN 

Calhoun in closing his speech in the senate on the 
fourth of March, 1850, declared: "It is time, senators, 
that there should be an open and manly avowal on all 
sides as to what is intended to be done. If the question is 
not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can be 
hereafter ; and we', as the representatives of the states of 
this union, regarded as governments, should come to a 
distinct understanding as to our respective views, in 
order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue 
can be settled or not. If you, who represent the stronger 
portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad prin- 
ciple of justice and duty, say so; and let the states we 
both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If 
you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so, and 
we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to 
submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will 
compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that 
case California will become the test question. If you 
admit her, under all the difficulties that oppose her ad- 
mission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude 
us from the whole of the acquired territories, with the in- 
tention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium be- 
tween the two sections. We would be blind not to per- 
ceive, in that case, that your objects are power and 
aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly." 

A year or two before this speech was delivered Cal- 
houn wrote to a friend in Alahama that, instead of shun- 
ning the issue with the north on the slavery question, it 
should be courted. ''I will go even one step farther," 
he said, ''and add that it is our duty to force the issue on 
the north. We are now stronger than we shall be here- 



52 WEBSTER'S WORK 

after, politically and morally. Unless we bring on the 
issue, delay to us will be dangerous indeed. It is the true 
policy of those who seek our destruction." 



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